MORGANTOWN — Hope Gas has simplified its May rate-hike proposal and backed off — temporarily — from elements of it following opposition from Public Service Commission staff.
Under the revised proposal, Hope Gas residential customers would see their rates rise by $6.08 per month — a 6.34% increase — effective Nov. 1.
Former People’s Gas customers would see their bills rise $6.41 per month, 6.1%; Southern Public Service Company, $4.54, 7.03%; Standard/Bazzle Gas, $5.13, 7.36%.
Earlier this month, PSC staff asked the PSC to dismiss virtually all of Hope’s rate-hike proposal, partly because they couldn’t determine if Hope’s proposal was reasonable, staff said, and partly on a technicality: A portion of the proposal regarding abandoning some pipelines belongs in a separate filing.
The proposed hike covers two Hope programs: its General Program for its core distribution system and its Gathering Program for gathering facilities. For this year, Hope projects to spend $64,037,752 for the General Program and $2,500,000 for the Gathering Program.
For 2025, the projected General Program investment is $62,537,752 and the Gathering Program is $3 million.
Hope in May proposed a “base case,” described above, and a “preferred case,” which is what it has set aside. It proposed to change the name of its PREP to Gathering Replacement and Expansion Program (GREP), reflecting some new priorities and shifts in how it determines its rates. The Gathering Program under PREP covers facilities acquired from Dominion. Under GREP, Hope planned to recover costs associated with buying pipelines from Equitrans.
Hope proposes to recover its GREP costs in its other annual filing: its 2024 Purchased Gas Application, which gas companies are required to file annually to account for the cost of the natural gas they buy and distribute.
PSC staff said Hope didn’t provide proposed GREP rates to recover its expenses, or the revenue requirements to support its proposed rates. Under state code, proposed rates must be just and reasonable, prudent and useful, not contrary to the public interest, and allow for adequate, efficient, safe, reliable and reasonably priced natural gas service.
Hope’s proposal, staff said, made it impossible to give adequate notice of proposed rates or allow PSC to make an informed decision on whether the rates are reasonable.
On the matter of the technicality, Hope projected annual investment in gathering facility-related projects would increase to $30 million. And Hope proposed to abandon in place or transfer to other companies certain gathering pipelines that it acquired from other companies and are no longer necessary or useful. Customers served by these lines would be switched to propane.
Staff said that a proposal to abandon or transfer pipelines is a different type of proceeding and doesn’t belong in this PREP/GREP filing.
So, Hope last week withdrew its preferred case — with an aside that those rates would have been lower than its base-case rates, without actually revealing what those rates would have been.
Hope reminded the PSC that when it bought the pipelines from Dominion and Equitrans, it planned to review them to make them more efficient and more economic. It has begun capital investments in them and continues its analysis.
“Hope does not withdraw its preferred case for any reason other than to ensure that it can be implemented successfully in the future over the necessary time periods to do so,” with the necessary PSC filings. “Hope intends to continue to work on and implement the essence of the preferred case in the future.”
PSC staff had moved to dismiss Hope’s preferred case. With Hope’s change of course, the PSC denied the motion. An evidentiary hearing in the case is set for Sept. 13.
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